Can We Make Vehicles Fun Again?

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

Vehicular gameplay in Halo hasn’t been amazing since Halo 3. This is sad! Halo: Reach’s vehicles were awful, Halo 4 improved slightly on that, and Halo 5 was better still on the vehicle front. But we’re still not there yet. I’ll throw out the disclaimer that, as a pretty hardcore, competitive (and goofy fun-having) player from all the way back in the CE days, Halo 5’s arena gameplay is amazing and the best since Halo 3’s (I know this is contentious–I’m just trying to contextualize my feelings about vehicles).

That said, vehicles just feel underwhelming–the maps are rarely big enough to accommodate for the difference sprint makes to big, less competitive maps, so it’s amusingly easy to get boarded in any sort of tank vehicle. Beyond that, the new precision of Halo 5’s (and 4’s, and Reach’s) weapons make lighter vehicles a joke to use as well. In Halo 3, you felt damn powerful in a warthog or even a ghost! Not invincible–for somebody who knew where anything was, it wasn’t particularly hard to grab a power drain, plasma pistol, or plasma grenades to get some work done on vehicles; but the point is, you had to try to take’em down! In Halo 5, you literally need nothing more than decent aim, a BR, and a little persistence to kill any sort of ghost driver, warthog gunner, or mongoose person. When it comes to tanks, like I said–they’re pretty easy to board! I think the vehicle play has gotten better and better over the past few games, but considering it has been a hallmark of Halo gameplay in the past, there’s still room to grow. (In this interview, the original Halo designers mentioned that it was literally the experience of riding around in the side seat of a warthog that made it obvious to them that Halo should be an FPS, rather than a third-person shooter.)

Use of vehicles in Campaign design has been sketchy as well. It is telling that the most (and only…?) truly impactful vehicle experience I’ve had in campaigns since 2007 has been the broadsword run at the end of Halo 4–and that didn’t even involve a standard vehicle! Some honorable mentions go to the mantis fight on Infinity in Halo 4, the Phaeton canyon run in H5, and the falcon parts in New Alexandria and the Spire in Reach–but many of these moments are less fun to play than they are just a really cool concept that doesn’t quite play out as well as your imagination wants it to. I will concede that this has to do with more general campaign issues as well, and not just the design of vehicles, but I just want to bring some general attention to the fact that vehicles could stand some TLC going forward. I miss my campaign-making vehicle moments, and my substantial (and actually fun) warthog runs from Halo 3! And when tanks were actually fun! And hornet flag-runs on Avalanche!

Edit: I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the fact that the nerfing of the laser might have something to do with this. The Halo 3 laser was perfectly balanced, I think, but it has since been nerfed out the wazoo. If we make it so that vehicle-killing weapons actually do their job, then we can find ways to make it so that standard precision-weapon fire and the ability to sprint aren’t so utterly debilitating for vehicle-users. Just another thought.

2

> 2533274809073993;1:
> Vehicular gameplay in Halo hasn’t been amazing since Halo 3. This is sad! Halo: Reach’s vehicles were awful, Halo 4 improved slightly on that, and Halo 5 was better still on the vehicle front. But we’re still not there yet. I’ll throw out the disclaimer that, as a pretty hardcore, competitive (and goofy fun-having) player from all the way back in the CE days, Halo 5’s arena gameplay is amazing and the best since Halo 3’s (I know this is contentious–I’m just trying to contextualize my feelings about vehicles).
>
> That said, vehicles just feel underwhelming–the maps are rarely big enough to accommodate for the difference sprint makes to big, less competitive maps, so it’s amusingly easy to get boarded in any sort of tank vehicle. Beyond that, the new precision of Halo 5’s (and 4’s, and Reach’s) weapons make lighter vehicles a joke to use as well. In Halo 3, you felt damn powerful in a warthog or even a ghost! Not invincible–for somebody who knew where anything was, it wasn’t particularly hard to grab a power drain, plasma pistol, or plasma grenades to get some work done on vehicles; but the point is, you had to try to take’em down! In Halo 5, you literally need nothing more than decent aim, a BR, and a little persistence to kill any sort of ghost driver, warthog gunner, or mongoose person. When it comes to tanks, like I said–they’re pretty easy to board! I think the vehicle play has gotten better and better over the past few games, but considering it has been a hallmark of Halo gameplay in the past, there’s still room to grow. (In this interview, the original Halo designers mentioned that it was literally the experience of riding around in the side seat of a warthog that made it obvious to them that Halo should be an FPS, rather than a third-person shooter.)
>
> Use of vehicles in Campaign design has been sketchy as well. It is telling that the most (and only…?) truly impactful vehicle experience I’ve had in campaigns since 2007 has been the broadsword run at the end of Halo 4–and that didn’t even involve a standard vehicle! Some honorable mentions go to the mantis fight on Infinity in Halo 4, the Phaeton canyon run in H5, and the falcon parts in New Alexandria and the Spire in Reach–but many of these moments are less fun to play than they are just a really cool concept that doesn’t quite play out as well as your imagination wants it to. I will concede that this has to do with more general campaign issues as well, and not just the design of vehicles, but I just want to bring some general attention to the fact that vehicles could stand some TLC going forward. I miss my campaign-making vehicle moments, and my substantial (and actually fun) warthog runs from Halo 3! And when tanks were actually fun! And hornet flag-runs on Avalanche!
>
> Edit: I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the fact that the nerfing of the laser might have something to do with this. The Halo 3 laser was perfectly balanced, I think, but it has since been nerfed out the wazoo. If we make it so that vehicle-killing weapons actually do their job, then we can find ways to make it so that standard precision-weapon fire and the ability to sprint aren’t so utterly debilitating for vehicle-users. Just another thought.

as someone who played a lot of BTB aside from the ghost, mongoose and warthog every vehicle had better handling in reach, you could argue you didn’t like the vehicle damage system or the maps that were used or a physics system that wasn’t as bouncy as halo 3, or even vehicle design…how the vehicle handles is not one of those.

In reach the tank moved slightly faster, hit max speed quicker and rotated faster, same for wraith.
The Banshee was a night and day difference from H3 to reach, in h3 the lowish skybox of maps sometimes made banshee gameplay clunky, it was slow and flips were painfully inconvenient, the reach banshee was sleek, quick, precise and high damage at the cost of low health, map design and spawn placements were reach’s real problem.
The Falcon and revenant both had great handling too.
H3 had tighter spaces in BTB maps and had better handling of fast light vehicles, banking corners were smooth, even on rough terrain, something that reach failed with.

As for halo 4 and 5 the vehicles aren’t better than reach, coming from reach into halo 4 you had the clunky mantis, the warthog was a tad better, but had worse spaces to drive through, halo 4 BTB map design didn’t really consider vehicle pathing much, hence why on exile (the map that was played 60% of the time) was just a donut loop. in both halo 4 and 5 the skyboxes are low and limit air vehicles, the maps are filled with a lot of floor junk so tanks don’t have a fun time either.

both games lack the good physics, map design/pathing and smooth driving of h3 or the crisp handling, precise movement, high damage and skill ceiling of reach vehicles.
the vehicles dont feel well integrated to either the map, the weapon sandbox, the movement or the players in 4 or 5, which i feel to more or less was nailed in 1,2,3 and reach to varying degrees of success.

3

I think the vehicles are mostly good (besides the OP banshee). It’s the maps that need work.

4

> 2533274809073993;1:
> That said, vehicles just feel underwhelming–the maps are rarely big enough to accommodate for the difference sprint makes to big, less competitive maps, so it’s amusingly easy to get boarded in any sort of tank vehicle. Beyond that, the new precision of Halo 5’s (and 4’s, and Reach’s) weapons make lighter vehicles a joke to use as well. In Halo 3, you felt damn powerful in a warthog or even a ghost! Not invincible–for somebody who knew where anything was, it wasn’t particularly hard to grab a power drain, plasma pistol, or plasma grenades to get some work done on vehicles; but the point is, you had to try to take’em down! In Halo 5, you literally need nothing more than decent aim, a BR, and a little persistence to kill any sort of ghost driver, warthog gunner, or mongoose person.

I couldn’t agree more about this part of the statement. My friend and I would wreck people in 4v4 once we got into hog, its seemed OP but when a person knew how to take down a vehicle they could do it very easily. I always made it my goal to take theirs down because you know they where mad on the other end when they only got 1 or 2 kills with it.

5

I’ll agree vehicles have become awful, to easy to destroy like paper machete, however I don’t think H4 or 5 improved on them, I see it differently and regressing game by game. Besides vehicles being weak, most also expose the gunners to where perfect kills are to easy where why get in anyways?

6

343 does not understand what you mean by fun. But here, take a weapon skin.

7

Only way to make vehicles as fun as they used to be is to take out sprint in my opinion but that’s a whole other subject.

8

It is kinda sad that vehicles have become as bad as they have… I never get in a warthog with my buddies and feel like I am going to go dominate like I did back in Reach, Halo 3, Halo 2. This game wasn’t really made with the Big Team folk in mind though :frowning: I wouldn’t mind if the gameplay went back to simpler times…

9

> 2533274821886199;4:
> > 2533274809073993;1:
> > That said, vehicles just feel underwhelming–the maps are rarely big enough to accommodate for the difference sprint makes to big, less competitive maps, so it’s amusingly easy to get boarded in any sort of tank vehicle. Beyond that, the new precision of Halo 5’s (and 4’s, and Reach’s) weapons make lighter vehicles a joke to use as well. In Halo 3, you felt damn powerful in a warthog or even a ghost! Not invincible–for somebody who knew where anything was, it wasn’t particularly hard to grab a power drain, plasma pistol, or plasma grenades to get some work done on vehicles; but the point is, you had to try to take’em down! In Halo 5, you literally need nothing more than decent aim, a BR, and a little persistence to kill any sort of ghost driver, warthog gunner, or mongoose person.
>
> I couldn’t agree more about this part of the statement. My friend and I would wreck people in 4v4 once we got into hog, its seemed OP but when a person knew how to take down a vehicle they could do it very easily. I always made it my goal to take theirs down because you know they where mad on the other end when they only got 1 or 2 kills with it.

Yeah! It used to be me and my brother hahaha. Gooood times!

> 2755103879196250;6:
> 343 does not understand what you mean by fun. But here, take a weapon skin.

LOL.

> 2535455681930574;3:
> I think the vehicles are mostly good (besides the OP banshee). It’s the maps that need work.

This is a fair point. I think I was speaking rather generally, but if we were going to dig into it, maps are definitely a big part of the problem–good call. The other major issue is dealing with how the weapon systems have evolved over time–precisions have gotten way more accurate, and the vehicles haven’t grown to accomodate that. I can see why it’s a hard thing to balance, as many of the vehicles hurt most by increasingly precise ranged weapons are so damn iconic! You can’t just go redesign the WARTHOG, lol! But I wonder if they could make the space between the plates a little less, or even have the plates wrap further around to the sides of the gunner’s head. Since they’re doing this anyway, they could just add a variant of the warthog with a better defended gunner position–same with the ghost, and maybe even the mongoose! You could leave the standards as they are for campaign, and use the better protected versions for BTB and warzone. Just one thought for getting around the problem.

10

> 2533275031939856;7:
> Only way to make vehicles as fun as they used to be is to take out sprint in my opinion but that’s a whole other subject.

I sort of disagree. I think sprint only really hurts tanks (and mantises to an extent), and I wonder if that couldn’t be remedied by ramping the speed, acceleration, and handling of the heavier stuff. They’d just have to make maps that really accommodate vehicular play, which they haven’t done a great job of. I don’t think sprint necessarily destroys the potential for good vehicle gameplay tho, unless you’re suggesting that they can’t make good vehicle maps and have sprint, which… I also disagree with. The designers are smart lol. They can figure it out, I just think people haven’t made a big enough fuss about it for them to see it as an important issue.

11

> 2533274809073993;10:
> > 2533275031939856;7:
> > Only way to make vehicles as fun as they used to be is to take out sprint in my opinion but that’s a whole other subject.
>
> I sort of disagree. I think sprint only really hurts tanks (and mantises to an extent), and I wonder if that couldn’t be remedied by ramping the speed, acceleration, and handling of the heavier stuff. They’d just have to make maps that really accommodate vehicular play, which they haven’t done a great job of. I don’t think sprint necessarily destroys the potential for good vehicle gameplay tho, unless you’re suggesting that they can’t make good vehicle maps and have sprint, which… I also disagree with. The designers are smart lol. They can figure it out, I just think people haven’t made a big enough fuss about it for them to see it as an important issue.

I haven’t really given it in depth thought. I guess with some vehicles like the scorpion a faster movement speed would help, but others like the warthog wouldn’t. It’s not really about how fast the vehicle is to me, it’s about how easy it is to get away from them and dodge them.

12

Two things that killed vehicular combat in Halo:

  1. Increased vulnerability to small arms fire + anti material sniper rifle from Reach
    From Reach to H5 people have been able to cross-map tanks and warthogs thanks to the anti material sniper. When someone half a kilometer away from you can wreck your Scorpion in less than 4 shots with a sniper, whats the point in using it anymore? Similarly, if all it takes to smack a Warthog off course is for people to ping it with a DMR or BR, whats the point in using it?

  2. Plasma pistol + plasma nade spawns in H4.
    For no discernible reason 343 decided to allow people to spawn with Plasma Pistols and Plasma Grenades in a loadout. Ruined BTB.

Honorable mention, Sprint
No I’m not trying to bash the sprint mechanic from A-Z, it has already been done. However, think about maps with a lot of wide open spaces. Back in H3, the security for a player to traverse these BTB orientated spaces was granted by vehicular superiority. If you’re on Sandtrap and your team loses their Warthogs, they also lose the ability to safely walk across certain areas, forcing them to use other spaces. This is an element of map control really not present in newer titles with the advent of sprint which makes it easier to get to A to B.

In sum: there’s very little to be gained from using vehicles nowadays and everything to lose.

13

I miss those btb games where you and your teammates would keep getting destroyed by an experienced driver and gunner in a warthog until you finally grab some stickies and hide behind a rock to get a double and killjoy. Like you said it was better when you couldnt easily br the gunner. In the old days you could spray a whole clip into a warthog gunner at mid range and end up missing enough shots that they just drive away so you had to have the right tool to take it down. Vehicles used to be equal or better than power weapons but now theyre worse than a carbine or dmr

14

> 2535424657812915;12:
> Two things that killed vehicular combat in Halo:
>
> 1. Increased vulnerability to small arms fire + anti material sniper rifle from Reach
> From Reach to H5 people have been able to cross-map tanks and warthogs thanks to the anti material sniper. When someone half a kilometer away from you can wreck your Scorpion in less than 4 shots with a sniper, whats the point in using it anymore? Similarly, if all it takes to smack a Warthog off course is for people to ping it with a DMR or BR, whats the point in using it?
>
> 2. Plasma pistol + plasma nade spawns in H4.
> For no discernible reason 343 decided to allow people to spawn with Plasma Pistols and Plasma Grenades in a loadout. Ruined BTB.
>
> Honorable mention, Sprint
> No I’m not trying to bash the sprint mechanic from A-Z, it has already been done. However, think about maps with a lot of wide open spaces. Back in H3, the security for a player to traverse these BTB orientated spaces was granted by vehicular superiority. If you’re on Sandtrap and your team loses their Warthogs, they also lose the ability to safely walk across certain areas, forcing them to use other spaces. This is an element of map control really not present in newer titles with the advent of sprint which makes it easier to get to A to B.
>
> In sum: there’s very little to be gained from using vehicles nowadays and everything to lose.

I like that they are more vulnerable now

15

> 2533274923562209;5:
> I’ll agree vehicles have become awful, to easy to destroy like paper machete, however I don’t think H4 or 5 improved on them, I see it differently and regressing game by game. Besides vehicles being weak, most also expose the gunners to where perfect kills are to easy where why get in anyways?

They should just use the H2C design for the Ghost, try playing SWAT against one of them. I barely killed the driver, but that’s because they missed me most of the time and I had to destroy the part of it covering the driver up to kill them.

16

I agree. My biggest three gripes are:

Pretty much all maps hinder ground vehicles with the amount of unnecessary clutter and landscape obstacles.

Warthogs are made of cardboard

Tanks should have to be damaged before a grenade can be planted. (Ex boarding individual should have to melee a few times to break a vent cover like in halo’s past)

17

They will only add cosmetic stuff to the game

18

> 2533275031939856;11:
> > 2533274809073993;10:
> > > 2533275031939856;7:
> > > Only way to make vehicles as fun as they used to be is to take out sprint in my opinion but that’s a whole other subject.
> >
> > I sort of disagree. I think sprint only really hurts tanks (and mantises to an extent), and I wonder if that couldn’t be remedied by ramping the speed, acceleration, and handling of the heavier stuff. They’d just have to make maps that really accommodate vehicular play, which they haven’t done a great job of. I don’t think sprint necessarily destroys the potential for good vehicle gameplay tho, unless you’re suggesting that they can’t make good vehicle maps and have sprint, which… I also disagree with. The designers are smart lol. They can figure it out, I just think people haven’t made a big enough fuss about it for them to see it as an important issue.
>
> I haven’t really given it in depth thought. I guess with some vehicles like the scorpion a faster movement speed would help, but others like the warthog wouldn’t. It’s not really about how fast the vehicle is to me, it’s about how easy it is to get away from them and dodge them.

Mmmm, I hadn’t thought about that. Do you really thing that’s the issue, though? Someone can’t sprint away under fire, and once you’re actually attacking someone (I’m using warthog/ghost as a reference here) the TTK is pretty quick. I think the issue is the vulnerability to hyper-accurate small-arms fire, which could be (possibly entirely) remedied by adding variants of each that offer a little more rap-around protections. I think the biggest issue with this would be push-back against redesigning the look of vehicles that are so dang classic, but this wouldn’t be an issue if we retained the classic looks for campaign and non-social multiplayer.

> 2535424657812915;12:
> Two things that killed vehicular combat in Halo:
>
> 1. Increased vulnerability to small arms fire + anti material sniper rifle from Reach
> From Reach to H5 people have been able to cross-map tanks and warthogs thanks to the anti material sniper. When someone half a kilometer away from you can wreck your Scorpion in less than 4 shots with a sniper, whats the point in using it anymore? Similarly, if all it takes to smack a Warthog off course is for people to ping it with a DMR or BR, whats the point in using it?
>
> 2. Plasma pistol + plasma nade spawns in H4.
> For no discernible reason 343 decided to allow people to spawn with Plasma Pistols and Plasma Grenades in a loadout. Ruined BTB.
>
> Honorable mention, Sprint
> No I’m not trying to bash the sprint mechanic from A-Z, it has already been done. However, think about maps with a lot of wide open spaces. Back in H3, the security for a player to traverse these BTB orientated spaces was granted by vehicular superiority. If you’re on Sandtrap and your team loses their Warthogs, they also lose the ability to safely walk across certain areas, forcing them to use other spaces. This is an element of map control really not present in newer titles with the advent of sprint which makes it easier to get to A to B.
>
> In sum: there’s very little to be gained from using vehicles nowadays and everything to lose.

Agree with a lot of this. I didn’t even think about the sniper (lol), but very true! The ease of plasma pistol/grenade spawns in 4 was definitely a joke; it’s less of an issue in 5 because I think usually people are more incentivized to pick different (arguably better) armor mods, and the REQ cost/opportunity cost of the plasma pistol makes it less of a deal in Warzone. Dude above mentioned the thing about sprint making it easier to get from location to location… I’m still skeptical as to whether this is the MAJOR issue with it in terms of big team. Far as sprint goes, I think it makes it way too easy–especially with all these relatively small vehicle-maps–to board and destroy slow–Yoink- tanks/wraiths/mantises.

Beyond that, I think it’s much more an issue that you can so easily get shot out of a warthog or ghost. It’s not hard to catch people in the open and kill them, it’s just that to catch people in the open with a warthog or ghost, you’re usually in the open, and being in the open in either of those in big team often means death. You don’t have the mobility in either vehicle to use cover in the way non-vehicle players do; if you DO try to use cover in a vehicle, it usually means you’re a) not getting kills or b) you’re getting boarded or naded to death, and if you DON’T use cover in a ghost or warthog, you’re dead. That’s the frustration. Vehicles have timers and used to be treated as power weapons, except now it’s a good warthog run if I get four kills, when I can run around on foot and get frenzys without too much ado.

> 2533274840836213;13:
> I miss those btb games where you and your teammates would keep getting destroyed by an experienced driver and gunner in a warthog until you finally grab some stickies and hide behind a rock to get a double and killjoy. Like you said it was better when you couldnt easily br the gunner. In the old days you could spray a whole clip into a warthog gunner at mid range and end up missing enough shots that they just drive away so you had to have the right tool to take it down. Vehicles used to be equal or better than power weapons but now theyre worse than a carbine or dmr

Lol all of this is so true. I too miss the good old days!!

> 2533274958671328;15:
> > 2533274923562209;5:
> > I’ll agree vehicles have become awful, to easy to destroy like paper machete, however I don’t think H4 or 5 improved on them, I see it differently and regressing game by game. Besides vehicles being weak, most also expose the gunners to where perfect kills are to easy where why get in anyways?
>
> They should just use the H2C design for the Ghost, try playing SWAT against one of them. I barely killed the driver, but that’s because they missed me most of the time and I had to destroy the part of it covering the driver up to kill them.

I assume you mean the H2A ghost…? What’s different about it? I can’t remember lol.

> 2533274794684102;16:
> I agree. My biggest three gripes are:
>
> Pretty much all maps hinder ground vehicles with the amount of unnecessary clutter and landscape obstacles.
>
> Warthogs are made of cardboard
>
> Tanks should have to be damaged before a grenade can be planted. (Ex boarding individual should have to melee a few times to break a vent cover like in halo’s past)

That’s an interesting idea about having to break the cover of a tank before planting–I’d forgotten about that mechanic, but it especially makes sense these days. How do you feel about that vs. just opening up maps better and offering better maneuverability/speed to tanks?

19

true yo i find the way they react to the controls is stupid wack

20

nice post btw vanguard